Infamous serial killer Ted Bundy married Carole Ann Boone while on trial for murder.
The pair first met in 1974 in Washington, assisting in search efforts for the women that Bundy had murdered. Despite spending years apart while the serial killer committed dozens of murders around the country, Boone and Bundy reconnected while he was imprisoned for attempted murder, and they married during the courthouse proceedings for his slaying of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.
"I've never seen anything in Ted that indicates any kind of destructiveness ... any kind of hostility," Boone said during the trial's proceedings, according to The Stranger Beside Me, written by crime reporter and former friend of Bundy, Ann Rule. "He's a warm, kind, patient man."
Despite Bundy's convictions, Boone continued to believe in his innocence -- often visiting him in prison -- and the couple welcomed a daughter together, Rose Bundy, allegedly conceived behind the prison walls. It was only after Bundy admitted to more than 30 murders that the couple split. Boone died in a retirement home in 2018.
So who was Ted Bundy's wife? Here's everything to know about Carole Ann Boone and her relationship with the serial killer.
Bundy first met Boone in 1974, while the two were working at the Washington State Department of Emergency Services in Olympia, Wash.
At the time, Bundy was helping with the search for the missing women he had killed. He abducted and murdered nearly a dozen women in Washington and the surrounding states that same year.
Boone was recently divorced from her second husband, with whom she had a son, James. Bundy and Boone began dating, even though he was still reportedly in a relationship with his previous girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer (portrayed by Lily Collins in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile).
"I liked Ted immediately. We hit it off well," Boone told true crime journalist Stephen Michaud after Bundy's execution for his book The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy. "He struck me as being a rather shy person with a lot more going on under the surface than what was on the surface. He certainly was more dignified and restrained than the more certifiable types around the office."
After parting ways for several years, the two reconnected in 1977 while Bundy was imprisoned in Utah for the murder of Caryn Campbell, a 23-year-old woman he killed in Colorado in 1975.
Boone and Bundy exchanged letters while he was in jail, and she even flew out to Utah to visit him.
While in prison, Bundy escaped twice, and it is believed that Boone assisted his escapes by smuggling him cash, per Rolling Stone.
In the first escape, Bundy fled through a courthouse library window and was soon apprehended, but upon his second escape from his Utah jail cell, he fled to Florida, where he committed three more murders and multiple assaults.
In 1978, Bundy was arrested for three murders -- first for killing two women, Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, in the Florida sorority house Chi Omega; and then for killing 12-year-old Leach.
Despite the evidence against Bundy, Boone believed her boyfriend was innocent of his crimes and moved to Florida with her son to attend Bundy's trial.
"Let me put it this way, I don't think that Ted belongs in jail. The things in Florida don't concern me any more than the things out west do," Boone said in a news clip at the time, which appeared in the Netflix docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.
During Bundy's trial for murdering Leach (after he had already been convicted and sentenced for the Chi Omega murders), he and Boone married in the courtroom on Feb. 9, 1980.
During the trial, Boone sat in the audience, giving Bundy (whom she called "Bunnie") “looks of love and encouragement,” according to The Stranger Beside Me.
On Feb. 6, 1980, it was revealed that Bundy and Boone had applied for a marriage license, which was denied by the judge. However, according to The Stranger Beside Me, Boone was determined to marry Bundy — even though she knew he would be convicted.
According to Florida law at the time, an open declaration of marriage — properly phrased — in the courtroom in front of legal court officers was considered a legal marriage. So Bundy, serving as his own attorney, called Boone to the witness stand, and the two performed a marriage ceremony.
On the stand, Boone said, “I’ve never seen anything in Ted that indicates any destructiveness towards any other people, and I have been associated with Ted in virtually every circumstance,” she told the jury according to Rule’s book. “Ted is a large part of my life. He is vital to me.”
Then, the marriage proceedings began with Bundy asking, “Do you want to marry me?” Boone said yes, but Bundy used the wrong terminology in his response — so the two had to try again. When Bundy asked the question again, Boone responded yes, and Bundy used the correct phrasing (“Then I do hereby marry you.”) and the couple were legally wed.
Bundy and Boone welcomed their daughter, Rose Bundy, in 1982 while he was in prison.
Though Bundy received multiple death sentences for the murders of the Chi Omega sorority sisters and Leach, Boone visited Bundy regularly in prison. After his conviction, she moved to a home in Gainesville, Fla., close to the prison where Bundy was being held, so she could make weekly visits to her husband, according to The Only Living Witness.
Although the two were not legally allowed conjugal visits, they were reportedly able to conceive Rose due to oversight from guards.
"After the first day they just, they didn't care," Bundy claimed of his visits with Boone in a recorded clip featured in The Ted Bundy Tapes. "They walked in on us a couple of times."
Boone gave birth to their daughter on Oct. 24, 1982.
For Bundy's first two years on death row, Boone often visited him in jail. However, she ended her visits -- and his ability to see his daughter, Rose -- after he admitted to more murders.
As Bundy neared the date of his execution -- Jan 24. 1989 -- he began to admit to additional crimes. After he confessed to more than 30 murders, Boone was "deeply betrayed" and "devastated," according to Bundy's lawyer Polly Nelson's book Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer.
In 1986, Boone and Bundy divorced; after which she reportedly moved with Rose & James to Washington state. According to 2020 docuseries Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer , Boone died Seattle retirement home 2018 .